"Why surely it is not worse than buying things of servants, who no
doubt steal them from their employers, or telling fortunes, which
is dealing with the devil."
"Not worse? Yes, a thousand times worse; there is nothing so very
particular in doing them things, but striopachas - Oh dear!"
"It's a dreadful thing I admit, but the other things are quite as
bad; you should do none of them."
"I'll take good care that I never do one, and that is striopachas;
them other things I know are not quite right, and I hope soon to
have done wid them; any day I can shake them off and look people in
the face, but were I once to do striopachas I could never hold up
my head"
"How comes it that you have such a horror of striopachas?"
"I got it from my mother, and she got it from hers. All Irish
women have a dread of striopachas. It's the only thing that
frights them; I manes the wild Irish, for as for the quality women
I have heard they are no bit better than the English. Come, yere
hanner, let's talk of something else."
"You were saying now that you were thinking of leaving off fortune-
telling and buying things of servants. Do you mean to depend upon
your needles alone?"
"No; I am thinking of leaving off tramping altogether and going to
the Tir na Siar."
"Isn't that America?"
"It is, yere hanner; the land of the west is America."
"A long way for a lone girl."
"I should not be alone, yere hanner; I should be wid my uncle
Tourlough and his wife."
"Are they going to America?"
"They are, yere hanner; they intends leaving off business and going
to America next spring."
"It will cost money."
"It will, yere hanner; but they have got money, and so have I."
"Is it because business is slack that you are thinking of going to
America?"
"Oh no, yere hanner; we wish to go there in order to get rid of old
ways and habits, amongst which are fortune-telling and buying
things of sarvants, which yere hanner was jist now checking me
wid."
"And can't you get rid of them here?"
"We cannot, yere hanner. If we stay here we must go on tramping,
and it is well known that doing them things is part of tramping."
"And what would you do in America?"
"Oh, we could do plenty of things in America - most likely we
should buy a piece of land and settle down."
"How came you to see the wickedness of the tramping life?"
"By hearing a great many sarmons and preachings and having often
had the Bible read to us by holy women who came to our tent."
"Of what religion do you call yourselves now?"
"I don't know, yere hanner; we are clane unsettled about religion.
